Interview: ANUBIS

ANUBIS have gone through constant change over the past few years, with shifting lineups and evolving ideas shaping their direction. Speaking with the band about Anthromorphicide, it’s clear this isn’t just another release, but a document of transformation in motion.

Hi guys! ANUBIS has changed shape a lot since 2019. Different members, different ideas, a lot of movement in a short time. When you listen to Anthromorphicide now, do you still recognize the band that started the project?
Being the only constant member, yes. Yes I do. I’ve been around through the whole process, and the evolution from the beginning to now has been slow enough to where no one step has been jarring enough to be a fundamental game-changer.
But if someone who ISN’T me were to watch footage of our very first live performance immediately after having listened to our newest batch of recordings, they’d have no reason to regard it as the same project. All the members are different, all the songs are different, the levels of skill and musicianship are different, the general approach to songwriting is different… basically a person seeing us live in 2020 (or whenever the fuck we were able to start playing shows again post-pandemic) was in for a fundamentally different experience than someone seeing live live now.

Anthromorphicide is a pretty brutal word. It sounds less like evolution and more like destroying the old version of yourself. Did that title come from the music, or from what the band was going through while making the record?
Anthromorphicide is a word I basically invented, whose roots combine to mean “death of the human form”. I forget exactly how I came up with that word, but it’s something I’ve wanted to use as a song title for a long time. It’s only when I thought about how significant a change the band was undergoing that I realized that it essentially encapsulated this stage of our creative evolution. This album is one hand in the “power/thrash with clean singing” paradigm with the other hand in the “melodic death metal where clean and dirty vocals play off each other” paradigm, so when a person hears this album, they’re literally experiencing the death of one form of our band and the birth of another.

Most bands try to lock down their lineup before recording a full album. You did the opposite and finished the record while the lineup was shifting. Was that stressful, or did it actually keep things interesting?
I’m not so sure we had a choice in the matter! As far as I’m concerned, the only non-option for this band is just doing nothing. The engine has to be moving forward at all times, under any circumstances, including key members leaving at the least opportune time possible.
The fact is, I’m not willing to put my entire creative legacy on the shelf for a year/year and a half to replace someone who decides to abruptly leave. If we have the resources and the willpower to move forward in spite of an absence, we’ll go that route every time. The fact that we’ve got at least one release per year every year since 2020 is a testament to that.

Devin, you started ANUBIS partly because you wanted something beyond just playing bass. When did the project stop feeling like an experiment and start feeling like your main creative identity?
I’d say around the time I started to notice people who weren’t close friends of mine starting to dig the music, memorize the lyrics, and wear our merch. If the only people getting anything out of this project were me and people in my immediate circle, it wouldn’t have taken very long for me to realize “hey, maybe this whole singing/songwriting thing should just stay kind of a side-side-side hobby…”

If someone presses play on Anthromorphicide without knowing anything about the band, what’s the first thing you hope hits them?
My hope is that they think first, “damn, these guys legitimately live and breathe metal”, and second, “wow, this combines a lot of different subgenres in ways that I’ve never expected before”. But I guess as long as they’re not thinking “Jesus Christ this blows”, I’m ahead of my own personal curve.

You’ve said the album captures the band evolving in real time. Can you actually hear those changes when you listen back to the songs now?
Absolutely. There are songs that were clearly written when the goal was to play straightforward Helloween/Gamma Ray/Edguy worship, sandwiched between songs that were written to cross early Soilwork with early Morbid Angel.
Basically you’re gonna hear a lot of different styles on this album, and each style can be assumed to be from a whole separate phase of the band’s evolution. The next album will probably be a lot more cohesive, but for now my hope is that listeners will find the sheer stylistic chaos of this stage endearing.

Bringing in a second vocalist when most of the record was already done is a risky move. What pushed you to make that call that late in the process?
Well, basically, I’m an impulsive guy. When I get some hare-brained scheme into my head, I usually take an “act first, think about the consequences later” approach. We all love hanging out with Hanna, she’s a fantastic vocalist, and an excellent performer, so we just kind of barreled ahead.
When we first started thinking about bumping Hanna from ‘occasional guest vocals’ to ‘full-time member’, I knew that the entire trajectory of how I imagined this band would completely change, and I had no clue what the result would look like. But I just didn’t really care. I wanted to do it, and presumed, with no actual evidence to back it up, that everything would work out in the end.

Your debut Dark Paradise leaned pretty heavily into traditional heavy metal. With this record, how far were you willing to stretch that sound before it stopped feeling like ANUBIS?
I guess since I’ve always considered Anubis just a personal vessel for my own creative output, that’s not really something I take into consideration. I basically love everything on the entire metal spectrum, so as long as I consider something punchy, hard-hitting, and well-written, I’m happy to release it under the ANUBIS header. And if our listeners are really, truly into hearing different styles of metal combine in unique ways, and not just a pre-determined notion of what we’re supposed to be (“power metal”, “thrash metal”, etc.), my hope is that they’ll continue to feel rewarded for sticking with us.

With so many people involved in the writing, were there moments where someone brought an idea that completely changed a song’s direction?
A SONG’S direction? Not really. Most of our songs are the brainchild of one person, with the only actual changes being whatever I need done to accommodate my vocal style. I will say though that the general trajectory of the band’s creative direction is usually an amalgam of everyone’s contributions combined. Speaking as the band’s makeshift “leader”, I basically don’t reject anything outright, so the total output is just a mishmash of whatever all individual members happened to be feeling when they decided to write.

You’ve hinted that some of the guest performances will surprise people. Are we talking subtle surprises, or the kind that make listeners double-check what band they’re hearing?
I guess it depends on whether or not this interview drops before people have a chance to hear the album. All I’ll say for now is that the ‘features’ cover everything from symphonic metal to classic brutal tech-death to modern dark pop – some of whom I’m legitimately, honest-to-god shocked the agreed to be on my little album. Hahaha

The band often talks about mixing melody with heaviness. That balance means something different for every band. What does it mean for you specifically?
I guess to me, mixing heaviness with melody means taking the best melodic music ever made and presenting it in the heaviest and most brutal ways people have yet to achieve. What I tend to find lacking in most music that combines heaviness with melody is that artists tend to water down one element in service of the other. “We can’t get TOO too heavy, cause that’ll interfere with the melody”. I say, fuck that. Give me Bon Jovi vocal melodies on top of Decrepit Birth riffs and blast beats!

When you finally heard the album front to back for the first time, what was your honest reaction?
Honestly, my reaction was George Lucas’s famous admission upon watching the “Phantom Menace” final cut for the first time: “I….. think I may have gone too far in a few places”.

Southern California has always had a reputation for producing strong metal scenes. What does the scene actually feel like right now from your perspective?
The SoCal metal scene right now feels like seven different scenes in one. It’s a never-ending battle to be noticed against the dozens of bands that are vying for everyone’s attention. But speaking as someone who’s had the fortune of sampling local metal from every inch of the entire US, I truly believe that SoCal consistently produces some of the greatest metal bands in the country, and you can quote me on that.

What’s something you learned from touring that nobody tells you when you first start a band?
If you’re not comfortable not just existing but actively thriving in circumstances that would make the average person break down and order a plane ticket home, you shouldn’t do it. If you aren’t able to get fully rested by sleeping upright in a chair surrounded by dozens of screaming voices, don’t do it.
On the other hand, if you’re perfectly fine living an extremely abstract lifestyle where the basic comforts of home are sparse, for no tangible benefit other than the fact that you love metal music so much that you’ll be willing to make any sacrifice imaginable just to be immersed in it 24 hours a day, you’ll have found your true place in the world.

A lot of bands only realize years later which album changed everything for them. Sitting here now, does Anthromorphicide feel like that kind of record?
I think that’s the type of thing I’d need to determine maybe three or four other albums down the road. I have no idea how this album is going to be received. I have absolutely no sense of whether people are going to love it, hate it, or be completely indifferent to it – and the worst part is that how people feel about this album will probably have nothing to do with how people feel about future albums.
I guess “the album that changes everything” tends to be the album that blasts the band into serious success, and whether that happens now or ten years from now is yet to be seen.

When this whole album cycle is over and you look back on it, what do you want people to remember about this era of ANUBIS? Thank you for your time!
“Wow, this was obviously a rocky, tumultuous time for these guys. I’m completely amazed that they were able to make it through, and achieve *insert list of things we’ll have achieved a few years down the line*.